Department of Food Science and Technology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
Department of Food Science and Technology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
Adv Food Nutr Res. 2022;100:287-328. doi: 10.1016/bs.afnr.2022.02.001. Epub 2022 Mar 14.
Over the last several decades, food irradiation technology has been proven neither to reduce the nutritional value of foods more than other preservation technologies, nor to make foods radioactive or dangerous to eat. Furthermore, food irradiation is a non-thermal food processing technology that helps preserve more heat sensitive nutrients than those found in thermally processed foods. Conventional food irradiation technologies, including γ-ray, electron beam and high energy X-ray, have certain limitations and drawbacks, such as involving radioactive isotopes, low penetration ability, and economical unfeasibility, respectively. Owing to the recent developments in instrumentation technology, more compact and cheaper tabletop low-energy X-ray sources have become available. The generation of low-energy X-ray, unlike γ-ray, does not involve radioactive isotopes and the cost is lower than high energy X-ray. Furthermore, low-energy X-ray possesses unique advantages, i.e., high linear energy transfer (LET) value and high relative biological effect (RBE) value. The advantages allow low-energy X-ray irradiation to provide a higher microbial inactivation efficacy than γ-ray and high energy X-ray irradiation. In the last few years, various applications reported in the literature indicate that low-energy X-ray irradiation has a great potential to become an alternative food preservation technique. This chapter discusses the technical advances of low-energy X-ray irradiation, microbial inactivation mechanism, factors influencing its efficiency, current applications, consumer acceptance, and limitations.
在过去的几十年中，食品辐照技术已被证明既不会比其他保存技术更降低食品的营养价值，也不会使食品具有放射性或食用危险。此外，食品辐照是一种非热食品加工技术，它有助于保存比热加工食品更多的热敏营养素。传统的食品辐照技术，包括γ射线、电子束和高能 X 射线，都有一定的局限性和缺点，例如涉及放射性同位素、低穿透能力和经济可行性分别。由于仪器技术的最新发展，更紧凑、更便宜的台式低能 X 射线源已经可用。与γ射线不同，低能 X 射线的产生不涉及放射性同位素，成本也低于高能 X 射线。此外，低能 X 射线具有独特的优势，即高线性转移能量（LET）值和高相对生物学效应（RBE）值。这些优势使得低能 X 射线辐照比γ射线和高能 X 射线辐照具有更高的微生物失活动能。在过去的几年中，文献中报道的各种应用表明，低能 X 射线辐照有很大的潜力成为一种替代食品保存技术。本章讨论了低能 X 射线辐照的技术进展、微生物失活动力学、影响其效率的因素、当前的应用、消费者接受程度和局限性。
